


WinterIron - Kissing Games

by tisfan



Series: Candy Hearts [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Pining, dares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 19:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13665735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: It's good to speak the same language...





	WinterIron - Kissing Games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fluffypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffypanda/gifts).



 

Clint Barton was an asshole, that was as simple as it was. Bucky had figured this out after about ten minutes spent with the guy, and his opinion hadn’t changed much.

Specifically, this time, Clint was counting off on his fingers all the reasons that Cap’s (and therefore, by association, Bucky’s) reputation was for shit and should be completely torn down.

“I mean, be real,” Clint said, around long sucks off his beer bottle, “the guy does adverts for fucking gym teachers, encouraging fitness? Yeah, he’s the poster boy for unrealistic body expectations. The guy’s muscles came out of a bottle, why’s he tellin’ teenage boys they should do pull ups instead of wanking off?”

Steve did, in fact, work out.

So did Bucky.

Neither of them had to, but they both _liked_ to. Steve, probably because after years of being a shrimpy 90 pound weakling, still had aggression issues to work out that a therapist would probably disapprove of, and Bucky because he liked the adrenalin rush that came from pushing his body a lot further than it needed to go.

“And he’s such a damn show off,” Clint continued. “Jumping out of a plane with no parachute? I mean, yeah, okay, it’s impressive as shit, but it’s not _brave_. It’s not like either of you can be really hurt, most of the time. That’s not bravery. Bravery is taking a risk when it might _cost_ you something.”

There wasn’t enough gravity in the world to keep Bucky from rolling his eyes at that. “So, what, exactly, do you think I oughtta be fuckin’ riskin’ here?”

“I don’t know,” Clint said, trying to drink out of an empty bottle. He sat the empty back on the table and started tossing the unpopped kernels from his bucket of popcorn into the mouth. He didn’t miss. He never missed. (Which was another reason why he was an asshole.) “Something…”

“How about telling the person you have a crush on them that you have a crush on them?” Nat suggested, looking smug, and Bucky was going to add her to the list of people he’d like to toss out a window just as soon as he recovered his stomach, which was currently crawling around in the floor by his boots.

“Wha--”

“Nat, dish!” Clint exclaimed. “I didn’t even know Bucky _had_ a crush.”

Nat just gave Clint her _I know something you don’t know smile_ (which was to say, her usual smile, because she always knew something you didn’t.) and raised her eyebrows at Bucky.

“Yeah, okay, yeah, I can get into this. In fact, I double-dog dare you to walk up to your crush and lay one on them. Or admit that you’re not brave, that you’re not impressive, and that the best part of you came out of a bottle.”

Ass.

Hole.

It wasn’t true. The best part of him hadn’t come out of a bottle; the best part of him had been washed down the drain with blood and waste and the remains of his arm and sanity.

It was true, in that he wasn’t brave.

It was also true that he had a crush, that he’d been pretending he _didn’t_ have a crush, and that he was planning -- in as much as he planned anything -- to continue to go about his life as if the crush didn’t exist, and didn’t matter, because at least the second of those things were true.

Also, Clint was right. Admitting his crush was _risking_ something.

Something _huge_.

“God, I hate you,” he told Clint. He sort of included Nat around the edges with that declaration, because he did hate her, but he was also pretty sure she could kill him in his sleep with a pair of tweezers, which just seemed a little ignonimous after everything he’d managed to live through.

“So, that means I’m getting that confession? Hot damn, fifty bucks for me,” Clint said, digging through his pocket to get his phone out. “Hit me with it, I totally want this for a ringtone.”

Bucky flicked his gaze around the room. Not that he needed to; part of his Winter Soldier training had involved extensive amounts of situational awareness. He always knew where his crush was, half the time when they weren’t even in the damn room, he knew. It was bordering on stalkerish behavior, really.

“It’s easy, just repeat after me,” Clint said, holding the phone up and filming. “I, the Winter Soldier, am a fucking chicken.”

“Yeah, keep filmin’,” Bucky said. He flipped off Barton (and his phone. And Nat.) and crossed the room in a few, hurried strides.

“Oh, hey there, Popsicle,” Tony said, looking up from where he’d been morosely staring into the bottom of his glass. He never actually drank from it anymore, but seemed to think his image as Tony Stark might suffer if he wasn’t carrying around a glass of single malt. “What can I do for you, arm acting up? Oh, I know, I saw that jump yesterday, when we were fighting the Doombots. Armor’s pinching again? I can fix that, I can alway--”

Bucky very, very gently took the glass out of Tony’s hand and sat it on the bar. “Shut up, Tony,” he said.

Tony made a little o with his mouth, just getting ready to protest because Tony never shut up. It wasn’t in Tony’s nature to shut up, give up, give in, or any of those sorts of things. Bucky wasn’t brave, and he knew he wasn’t, because he lived in the Tower with someone like Tony.

Who was.

Who was brave and generous.

And smart (if not necessarily wise).

And gorgeous. And--

Fuck it.

Bucky grabbed hold of that silk tie and reeled him in until they weren’t but a few inches apart. “Nothin’s wrong,” Bucky said. “Armor’s fine. Arm’s great. Just--”

He used to be smooth, back in the day. Had a line, had a method, had a plan for getting in close to someone and kissing them. He lost all that somewhere. Fuck it. Tony could slap him, if he was getting too fresh. He used the tie to bring Tony the rest of the way in, slanted his mouth, and kissed him.

He wasn’t planning to push it, just simple lip-to-lip contact was good enough, but Tony gasped and then sighed into Bucky’s mouth and the tip of Tony’s tongue swiped out to flick over Bucky’s upper lip.

There was a wolf whistle and a couple of assorted noises and Tony pulled back with a startled jerk. His honey-brown eyes flicked around the room, narrowing on Clint with his damn cellphone camera. “Did Barton put you up to that?” Tony asked. “A bet, one of his stupid _dares_?”

“Uh, kinda, yeah,” Bucky said, pushing his hair back over his forehead, ending with a squeeze at the back of his neck like he did when he was nervous.

Tony’s face did a thing… like it cracked, then broke apart, then went back to… almost normal, except for a little tightness around his mouth. “Well, now you’ve had your fun, go collect your fifty dollars, or whatever it was. Thanks for playing this round of Tony’s such a slut.”

Bucky blinked. “What?”

“Run along, Barnes,” Tony said, making a shooing gesture with one hand and groping for the drink with the other. “I’m afraid I don’t want to play this game tonight. Or ever, really.”

“What?” Bucky repeated, like his brain was stuck, because it _was_. “Wait, no. No, Tony. It… shit, it wasn’t… he didn’t… fuck.”

“No, definitely not,” Tony said. “That’s right off the table, bet or no bet.”

“I didn’t mean like that,” Bucky protested. “Barton… dared me t’ go tell my crush that I liked ‘em, that’s all. I… didn’t know how to say it, so--”

“You just decided to maul me like a drunk prom date?”

Bucky winced. Yeah, he’d fucked this up big time. Tony was never, ever going to like him back, Bucky’d already known that, which is why he didn’t say anything, but now Tony was probably going to damn well hate him, and that…

Well, Clint was right, at least. Bucky’d taken a risk on something that was going to hurt to fail.

“Sorry,” Bucky said. He opened his mouth to add something, then snapped it shut. There was nothing to say. Turned around to walk away, knowing Clint was filming, knowing he’d fucked everything up, and just… hurting.

Someone caught his arm, and spun Bucky around. “Wait,” Tony said. “Your version of telling your crush you like them is to just walk up and kiss them?”

Bucky shrugged. He thought they’d covered this already, but maybe Tony was going to--

Tony grabbed hold of Bucky’s shirt collar and hauled him in.

Kissed him. Long and slow and wet and thorough. With probably a little more tongue and soft moaning sounds than were really appropriate for a second kiss. In public. With Clint filming them. And Bucky couldn’t seem to care.

“What--” he gasped when it was over and he was drawing air into his lungs like he was dying. “What was that?”

“Just making sure we’re speaking the same language,” Tony said. “I can be taught. You tell your crush you like them by kissing. It’s a good method.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Bucky said. And then he kissed Tony. Again.

He was only a little smug, later, about collecting his fifty dollars from Clint.

Who was still an asshole.

But Bucky didn’t mind.

 


End file.
